The footsteps hadn't gone far.
Lin Feng gripped his wood-chopping knife, his back pressed against the earthen wall, his breathing barely audible. In the alley outside, the two sets of footsteps paused a few paces away, seemingly exchanging a few whispered words, before turning back and heading towards his dilapidated hut.
This time, they walked slowly. Very slowly. As if weighing something.
Lin Feng rubbed the old scar on his thumb, his mind racing. Two men, around the first or second level of Qi Refining, Scarface Liu's henchmen. He'd just warned them during the day, and they'd come knocking at night—it wasn't a coincidence.
What did they want? The Iron Jade? Or had they sensed something amiss in his cultivation?
There weren't many usable items in the hut. The chipped wood-chopping knife was in his hand, and in the corner lay a sharpened old iron stinger, originally used by Shen Lian to poke the stove. The window was a back window, mostly nailed shut with rotten planks, but a few planks in the lower right corner were loose; he'd checked a few days ago and they could be easily broken open. Outside was a narrow alley, sewage flowing everywhere, leading around two corners to a garbage dump behind the market, and further in to an abandoned miners' shack area—the terrain was complex.
Footsteps stopped outside the door.
Lin Feng didn't move. The oil lamp had long since gone out, the room as black as ink. Shen Lian lay on a straw mat, his breathing weak and almost inaudible.
A few breaths of silence followed outside. Then, the soft sound of knuckles tapping on the door. Tap, tap-tap. Unhurriedly.
"Boy, open the door," a low, hoarse male voice said, tinged with impatience, "Master Liu wants to ask some questions."
Lin Feng didn't answer.
"Did you hear that?" another, shrill voice called out, the same triangular-eyed man from the alley during the day. "Stop playing dead. If you don't open it, we'll both come in ourselves."
The door creaked as it was pushed open. The straw rope tie offered no resistance.
Lin Feng retreated to the corner, grabbing the iron rod. It was cold, one end sharpened, and heavy in his hand. He pressed himself against the wall, his eyes fixed on the shadowy figure flickering outside the crack in the door.
The door was flung open.
A burly figure strode in first, carrying a dim, flickering lamp. The light instantly pierced the darkness, illuminating the sparse furnishings and Shen Lian's figure on the straw mat in the corner. The burly man's gaze swept around, landing on the spot where Lin Feng had been sitting—empty.
He hesitated.
In that instant, Lin Feng leaped from the shadows behind the door, the iron rod thrusting viciously towards the burly man's ribs. He hadn't practiced any formal techniques, but years of training had honed his arms to a steady, powerful stance. The tip of the iron skewer pierced his coarse cloth shirt and embedded itself in his flesh.
The burly man groaned, the lamp slipping from his hand and crashing to the ground, spilling oil and causing a small flame to leap up. He reached for Lin Feng's wrist, but his movement was a fraction too slow. Lin Feng pulled the skewer away, drawing out a warm liquid with a pungent odor.
"Damn it!" the burly man cursed, clutching his ribs and staggering backward.
Seeing this from outside the door, the man with the triangular eyes hissed, "Looking for death!" He made a hand seal, and a small, orange-red flame ignited at his fingertips, quickly expanding into a fist-sized fireball. The room was cramped, and the instant the fireball lit up, a wave of heat washed over them.
Lin Feng's pupils constricted. Spell! He had only ever seen cultivators use fireballs in duels in the market, never expecting that Scarface Liu's men actually possessed such a skill.
The fireball hurtled towards him. Lin Feng had no time to dodge. He held the wood-chopping knife horizontally in front of his chest, desperately channeling the faint, earthy-yellow spiritual energy within him into the knife. A very faint, almost invisible, grayish-yellow sheen appeared on the surface of the knife.
Boom!
The fireball collided with the knife, exploding in a blinding flash. The heat and impact sent Lin Feng flying, his back slamming against the earthen wall. The knife shattered, several fragments embedding themselves in his arm and chest, sending sharp pain through him. A sweet taste rose in his throat, and blood trickled from the corner of his mouth.
His ribs were probably broken. His chest burned with pain.
The man with the triangular eyes was also pushed back a step by the blast wave, a hint of surprise flashing across his face. "It actually managed to block it?" He narrowed his eyes, his fingertips igniting again.
Lin Feng coughed up blood, his gaze sweeping over the spilled lamp oil and the flickering flames on the ground. Thick smoke began to fill the room. The burly man leaned against the doorframe, clutching a wound on his ribs, his face pale, temporarily incapacitated.
He couldn't wait for a second fireball.
Lin Feng suddenly grabbed a broken earthenware pot and smashed it against the triangular-eyed man's face. The triangular-eyed man dodged, the pot shattering against the doorframe. Taking advantage of the opening, Lin Feng lunged towards the straw mat, scooped up Shen Lian with his uninjured right arm, and hoisted him onto his back. Shen Lian was frighteningly light, his bones feeling heavy.
The triangular-eyed man reacted, and the fireball coalesced again. "Trying to run?"
Lin Feng didn't even look at him, carrying Shen Lian as he charged towards the nailed-up window in the back wall of the house. He turned sideways, aiming his shoulder at the loose wooden planks in the lower right corner, and slammed into them.
Crack! The sound of the planks breaking was faint amidst the explosion and crackling flames. The entire window frame, along with the broken planks, collapsed, creating a hole. The night wind, carrying the damp, rotten smell unique to the valley, rushed in.
Without hesitation, Lin Feng carried Shen Lian and crawled out of the hole. He ignored the splinters of wood tearing his clothes and skin.
Behind him came the angry curses of the triangular-eyed man and the weak shouts of the burly man. A second fireball slammed into the edge of the hole he had just created, exploding into an even larger burst of flames and igniting more wood.
Lin Feng staggered as he landed, a sharp pain in his left rib making his vision blur. He gritted his teeth, sized up his direction, and ran desperately into the dark depths of the garbage dump and abandoned shacks he remembered.
Footsteps and curses came from the direction of the dilapidated houses behind him, but were somewhat masked by the crackling of the flames and the faint clamor of the distant market. Lin Feng deliberately chose narrow alleys, sewers, and dead ends piled with debris. His familiarity with this area far surpassed that of Scarface Liu's henchmen.
Shen Lian's breath brushed against the back of his neck, faint, but still present.
After running for about fifteen minutes, the shouts of the pursuers gradually faded into the distance. Lin Feng turned into a dead end, at the end of a half-collapsed earthen wall, its base piled with the broken belongings of miners abandoned countless years ago. He put Shen Lian down, leaning against the wall, panting heavily. Each breath felt like a knife twisting in his left ribs.
His mouth was full of the taste of blood. He wiped his mouth, his hand a dark red stain.
In the distance, in the direction of his dilapidated house, firelight illuminated a small patch of the night sky. In Chen Gu, fires of this magnitude weren't uncommon; no one would care. But Scarface Liu's men would definitely search.
He couldn't stay here any longer.
Lin Feng endured the pain and picked Shen Lian up again. He remembered that behind this half-collapsed earthen wall, past a pile of waste ore, was an even more hidden, half-buried abandoned shack, a temporary refuge dug by miners years ago. The entrance was mostly covered by collapsed earth and rocks; it was impossible to find without careful searching.
He struggled to climb over the earthen wall, the gravel slipping under his feet. In the darkness, relying on his vague intuition for the smell of earth and stone, he groped his way in, stumbling and staggering. The pain in his left rib nearly made him kneel several times.
Found it.
The entrance to the shack was just a narrow, downward-sloping crack, barely enough for one person to squeeze through sideways. It was pitch black inside, and a strong, earthy, musty smell assaulted his nostrils. Lin Feng first carefully placed Shen Lian inside, then, enduring the pain, squeezed in himself.
The space inside was slightly larger than he had imagined, like an overturned, broken bowl, enough for two or three people to huddle together. The floor was compacted earth, damp and cold. A few crooked wooden pillars supported the ceiling, and a few extremely faint rays of sunlight, refracted from who-knows-where, pierced through the cracks, barely enough to make out outlines.
Completely safe—for now.
Lin Feng slumped to the ground, leaning against the cold earthen wall, panting heavily. Cold sweat mixed with blood, sticking his clothes to his body. He fumbled around, checking his injuries.
His left rib was definitely broken; even the slightest movement caused excruciating pain. There were several shallow wounds on his chest and arms, caused by fragments of the woodcutter's knife, but they had bled considerably. His internal organs were churning, his blood and qi surging violently.
He recalled the moment he blocked the fireball. The woodcutter's knife shattered, but most of the impact was neutralized by that extremely faint grayish-yellow luster. Otherwise, with his physique, barely reaching the threshold of Qi Refining, a direct hit from a fireball would have at least left him half-dead, if not dead.
That luster… was it the earth-attribute spiritual energy he had infused into it?
The thought had barely formed in Lin Feng's mind when a sharp, piercing pain suddenly shot through his chest. It wasn't the pain of an external injury, but a deep, bone-deep emptiness and hollowness, as if something had been drained from him.
He instinctively reached into his robes.
The ancient jade was pressed against his skin, icy cold to the touch. But as his fingertips brushed its surface, he felt an extremely subtle protrusion. It wasn't a jade pattern, it was a crack. A new, hair-thin crack stretched across the surface of the ancient jade, next to an older one.
Lin Feng froze.
At the same time, an indescribable feeling welled up inside him. The faint connection between him and the ancient jade—the barely perceptible warmth he used to feel only when pressed against it—became clearer. Like a thinner veil.
But along with the clarity came a deeper weakness. His exhaustion and emptiness far exceeded what one would expect from broken bones and blood loss. It was as if a small hole had been pierced in his life force, slowly draining away.
The price.
These two words flashed through his mind. Using the ancient jade to aid cultivation consumed vital energy; blocking a fatal blow came at an even greater price. This crack, and the deep-seated weakness, were the price.
Lin Feng leaned against the earthen wall, silently grimacing in the darkness. He wanted to laugh, but didn't. He had survived, but it felt like he owed another debt. The debt of the ancient jade.
A rustling sound came from the side. Shen Lian stirred, letting out a muffled groan.
Lin Feng moved closer, using the faint light filtering through the crack to examine him. Shen Lian's face was ashen, but his breathing was still relatively steady. His brows were furrowed in his unconscious state, as if he were having a nightmare. The fact that his external wounds hadn't reopened was a stroke of luck.
He pulled out the old cloth bundle from his pocket. There weren't many things inside: the last remaining fragment of a spirit stone, a few copper coins, the incomplete page of the *Qi-Inducing Technique*, and a thin, fragment carefully wrapped in rags. The fragment was cold, and the engravings on its surface seemed even shallower than before, almost invisible.
The spirit stone couldn't be touched; it had to be saved for emergencies. The copper coins… in their current situation, were no different from stones.
The most urgent tasks were treating the injuries and getting some food and drink. Neither he nor Shen Lian could hold out much longer.
Lin Feng tore off the hem of his relatively clean inner shirt and used it to roughly bandage the wounds on his arms and chest. He couldn't move his left rib as much as possible. Leaning against the earthen wall, he tried to guide his spiritual energy along the twelve winding circuits. The flow was sluggish, severely hampered by his injuries and weakness, but a faint warmth still emanated from the ancient jade at his chest, slowly nourishing his parched meridians.
It was effective, but too slow.
He could vaguely hear voices outside, indistinct through the earth and debris. Were pursuers searching the area? Or other wandering cultivators at night?
Lin Feng stopped cultivating and listened intently. The sounds gradually faded into the distance.
He breathed a sigh of relief, but his tense nerves didn't relax. Dawn was approaching. After daybreak, if Scarface Liu's men couldn't find them, they might expand their search area. This shack wasn't absolutely safe, especially if they were accompanied by cultivators or spirit beasts skilled in tracking.
He had to move as soon as possible. But Shen Lian was unconscious, and he himself was seriously injured. Where could he go?
He couldn't return to the market town. Other gathering places for independent cultivators were too crowded and risky, making him more vulnerable. The outskirts of Shengu Valley? It was more desolate and dangerous there, but perhaps there were abandoned mines or hunter's huts where he could take refuge.
Lin Feng pondered in the darkness, his fingers unconsciously twirling the broken spirit stone in his pocket. The sharp edges of the stone pressed against his fingertips, cold and hard.
He needed to survive tonight. At dawn, he would observe the outside world and decide where to go. If all else failed…
He thought of the gravel slope, the skeleton deep in the mine, and the fleeting light. It was dangerous, but also remote. Scarface Liu's men might not dare to venture deep, or they might not expect him to retreat.
His thoughts gradually became clearer. Survive, heal his wounds, and then… leave Shengu Valley. The sooner the better.
This thought, once it took hold, was like a seed planted in his heart. Things that had seemed distant and vague before had become incredibly real and urgent after tonight's life-or-death struggle.
Shen Lian groaned again, mumbling a few words: "...Don't...touch..."
Lin Feng leaned closer. "Master Shen?"
Shen Lian didn't wake up, his eyes darting rapidly beneath his eyelids, trapped in a nightmare. "...The...furnace...was wrong..." His withered fingers gripped the earth beneath him, his knuckles white.
Lin Feng grasped his hand. Cold, trembling.
Wrong? What was wrong? Was it about his failed weapon forging back then? Lin Feng remembered the fragment hidden in Shen Lian's leg, and the deep-seated hatred that occasionally flashed in his eyes when he was drunk.
Those secrets, Shen Lian had never spoken openly. But Lin Feng knew that the old man harbored something deep within him, something very heavy.
"It's alright now," Lin Feng whispered, unsure if he was speaking to Shen Lian or to himself, "The fire's out."
Shen Lian gradually calmed down, his breathing becoming weak and even again.
Lin Feng leaned back against the earthen wall, staring at the thick darkness filtering through the cracks above. The distant market's clamor fell completely silent, save for the eternal wind of Shengu, howling softly through the cracks in the rocks and ruins.
The ancient jade pressed against his chest, the new crack starkly visible. A wave of weakness washed over him.
But his mind was unusually clear. He recalled the feel of the iron skewer piercing his flesh, the light and heat of the exploding fireball, the tremor as the woodcutter's knife shattered, and the sewage-filled alleyways beneath his feet during his escape.
Every step was calculated. Every breath was a weighing of options.
This was Shengu. Scarface Liu, triangular eyes, those eyes hidden behind the gray mist, and countless others like Chen San, crushed and silently vanished… all forming the lowest level of order.
He had once only wanted to carve out a path to survival in the cracks of this order, to gather enough spirit stones to heal Shen Lian, and perhaps then live a life barely resembling a human being.
Now he realized that the cracks were too narrow. So narrow that someone could easily crush him against a wall with a gentle squeeze.
He needed to widen the crack. Or, he could just smash it open.
Lin Feng closed his eyes, his right thumb slowly rubbing the old scar on the web of his left hand. The scar was rough, but touching it for a while gave him a strange sense of security.
As dawn approached, he made a decision.
He would hide on the outskirts of the sinking valley for a few days, looking for an opportunity to get some herbs to treat his injuries. Once he could move a little more, he would go back to the mine on the rubble slope. Not to die, but to see if there was anything else beside that skeleton—for example, another object that might trigger the ancient jade's response, or other clues.
The risk was high. But compared to hiding under Scarface Liu's nose, perhaps that dead end offered a glimmer of hope.
As for the ancient jade's cracks and weakness… he wasn't worried about the debt. He needed to live first, and pay it back slowly.
The sunlight filtering through the crack gradually changed from deep black to a stagnant gray-white. A new day slowly descended in the murky mist of the sinking valley. In the distance outside the shack, a few short shouts drifted faintly, as if someone was arguing, before quickly fading away.
Lin Feng remained motionless, listening.
Only when the sounds completely disappeared did he slowly exhale a breath of foul air, tinged with the smell of blood, and pull the broken spirit stone from his robes, holding it in his palm.
Cold. Hard.
Like the night in this desolate valley, and like the heart he had to harden at this moment.